Getting Started With Bulk REO Investing
No generation in American history has ever experienced the number of foreclosures and defaulted mortgages as is happening now. Yet well-funded investors in real estate are seizing upon this opening to profit from an profoundly profitable new opportunity.
‘Bulk REO Investing’ is the name of the new strategy, and it’s captured the attention of many well-heeled investors.
Consider with me, if you will, the fundamentals of the Bulk REO business.
To understand investing in Bulk REO, you have to understand the foreclosure process.
When a home owner begins to miss payments on their mortgage, the lender begins to send late/overdue notices to the home owner. After a certain period, the lender will then formally begin foreclosure proceedings. From that time through public auction is called ‘preforeclosure’.
Foreclosure is completed when the property is put up for auction. The lender regains ownership of the property if there are no buyers at auction. The lender then categorizes the property as ‘Real Estate Owned’ – or ‘REO’ for short.
Typically, lenders list their REO properties with local real estate agents in hopes of selling the property to a retail buyer who will pay full price. However, lenders are increasingly willing to take much less than their REO asset is actually worth. But the price of receiving such great pricing is the need to purchase multiple REO properties (a ‘package’) rather than individual properties.
The recession in the United States has yielded huge profits to real estate investors prepared to take advantage. REO packages are easiest to buy and sell with a well regarded source of financing in place. There are many sources of funding for these transasactions including: hard money and commercial financing, as well as non conventional sources such as hedge funds and private investors. Additionally, one man is becoming very well known in the field of bulk REO investing, and his name is Salvatore Bushemi of Dandrew Partners, a hedge fund in New York.
